Once again… we’re knocking out a review of our year with lots of ups and one massive down (left until the end). We’ve added in-page links to posts made earlier in the year, in case you’re really, really interested. If nothing else you might come away with ideas for a holiday or two.

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And they’re off

The year began with a Winter-avoiding Exodus tour of Sri Lanka – specifically, the south-west and central part of the island. Plenty to see and do, delicious food to eat, and some nice people to help celebrate Colin’s 70th birthday on 14 February (as usual).

The island has it all

Climbing Sigiriya (Lion’s Rock) was one highlight. But there was also relaxing by the beach in Bentota, exploring architect Geoffrey’s Bawa’s house and garden, visiting the Buddhist rock temples at Dambulla, hunting for elephants at Hurulu Eco-Park, touring the ancient site of Polonnaruwa, the Temple of the Tooth in Kandy, the hill town of Nuwara Eliya, Galle fort, walking in Horton Plains National Park (pity about that torn Achilles)… and so on and so forth.

If you haven’t been, you might consider it. Although Sri Lanka suffered badly from Cyclone Ditwah, it is back open for business.

The old joanna

Despite having attained Grade 8 level a few years ago Anne is still practising every day and taking lessons on Mondays. In July she took part in a concert at St Faith’s North Dulwich, including pieces for four hands (with her friend Rachel, two hands each).

Colin’s band One for the Wall have been labouring on their fourth album, but rehearsal time has been constrained by its two principal musicians (obviously not Colin) having been or about to go, under the surgeon’s knife. But they hope to be back in the studio next Spring.

Academic nostalgia

Colin has been made a member of The Queen’s College Taberdars Society (What’s a taberdar? I hear you cry), by the simple ruse of leaving money to his alma mater when he’s dead and no longer has a use for it. He caught up with friends and fellow alumni this summer at a lunch in Oxford, an Old Members reception at the Royal Academy, and a Christmas concert at Sinfonia, Smith Square.

The long-awaited biography by Bruce Taylor of the late Professor Sir Peter Russell (Colin’s prof in the 70s) was published last autumn. Colin wrote a book review for Queen’s, where Russell had studied, and contributed a letter to TLS (7 January) about Russell/Wheeler and his appearance in the novels of both Javier Marías and J-L Giménez-Frontín.

On 31 March Colin met with ex-colleagues to celebrate a decade of enjoyable and productive retirement from the British Library, which appears to no longer be a happy place to work. He also set up a meeting of four members of his primary school class at Overchurch.

French connections

In March we took the first of two short trips to Paris, principally to see the newly-restored Notre Dame and attend a wonderfull exhibition by Chiharu Shiota at the Grand Palais.

We visited our holiday home in La Bréchoire in April and again in the summer, before it became unbearably hot.

Our surprisingly busy Charentais social life was augmented by trips to the seaside: Fouras, Royan and, on the way home, Saint-Suliac and beautiful Ploumanac’h in northern Brittany, where we walked, kayaked, and swam – briefly – in 15c seawater.

We made a second visit to Paris to celebrate Anne’s birthday. Instead of staying as usual by the Saint-Martin canal (nicer than it sounds!) we found a family-run hotel, Le Muguet, near Les Invalides in the 7th arrondissement. We were fortunate with the November weather, especially as we had booked a boat trip to see the illuminated Eiffel Tower. Corny but beautiful.

We were back in Charente in November. At last (we hope), we have seen off the infestation of wood-boring beetles that was causing us so much angst. And we have acquired an exciting new wood shed, thanks to Steve.

Still awake, are you?

Anne is still a Trustee of the Wordsworth Trust at Grasmere (Cumbria) and of Jane Austen’s House Trust at Chawton (Hampshire). She has now ceased to be a Trustee of the Peter Minet Trust after serving her allotted 10 years.

Colin, Hon. President of the Herne Hill Society, continues to edit and maintain their website, and contributes the odd article for Herne Hill magazine and e-newsletter.

More Interrailing

On 30 August we embarked on our second Interrail holiday, this time visiting the Austrian Tyrol, Italy and Mediterranean France. Colin has blogged about it at enormous length.

Again, it’s hard to pick out highlights… Innsbruck, Venice, Monopoli (Puglia), Rome (re-visited after a gap of 30 years), Siena and Cassis (near Marseilles) did not disappoint. We arrived back in dear old Herne Hill on 23 September by TGV and Eurostar, thousands of £££ worse off but with a mountain of photos and memories.

If you want any advice on pensioner-interrailing, get in touch with Anne.

Health and fitness

We continue to go to the gym and swimming pool every Sunday: not greatly impressive but better than nothing.

Anne coughed her way around Sri Lanka in February and may have had Covid. Top tip: since neither of us could obtain a Covid jab in UK for less than £75 each, we got one in a pharmacy in France this autumn for a tenth of the price.

Thankfully we’ve both dodged serious illness for another year. Colin managed to damage both Achilles tendons, on separate occasions, which made a holiday based on traipsing around Italian cities rather hard work. Then Anne had a painful fall on the ferry. I think the odd torn muscle and a bit of arthritis can be described as reasonable wear and tear. As someone once said, it’s like trying to keep a Vauxhall Viva on the road.

Exploring Britain

There was not a great deal of that as we were abroad so much, but we enjoyed a long walk in warm and sunny weather to see Monk’s House (Virginia and Leonard Woolf’s house) in Rodwell, and explored Rye and Dungeness (Derek Jarman’s house).

We also had a couple of weekends in the Lakes, staying dry throughout on both occasions.

Colin visited the fleshpots of Shrewsbury for the first time, to visit friends. A lovely town.

In less amenable Welsh weather we took a day trip from Birkenhead to Llandudno. We were transported by tram to the summit of the Great Orme, from where we could see as far as Llandudno.

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Big birthday

On 3 October we celebrated Anne’s Dad’s birthday. David is now 90. We were delighted to be joined by Anne’s cousin Richard, his wife Vilina and their son Jonathan.

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And now, our influential cultural review

Live performances

We gave up our Sunday morning swim twice to attend concerts at the Wigmore Hall. On 16 March the Dover Quartet played pieces by Mozart and Tchaikovsky, and the Philippe Cassard Trio tackled Beethoven’s Archduke Trio and a sombre piano trio by Ravel on 20 April. We’re big fans of these concerts: they are affordable and, to be blunt, short, so you can get the culture out of the way early then go for lunch in town.

As in 2024, we went to just the one Prom, to hear Beatrice Rana play Rachmaninov’s sublime Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini on 8 August, accompanied by the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Dukas and Bartók were also on the programme.

King’s Place was the venue on 11 October for Stephen Hough’s “Two Piano Gala”. An evening of thrilling music ended with “Triana” from Isaac Albéniz’s Iberia.

Pizza Express in Soho was the unusual venue for a memory lane gig featuring guitar legend John Etheridge (ex-Soft Machine) and Paul Jones (ex-Manfred Mann).

Sadly, only one trip to the theatre, to see Gang of Three in May at the King’s Head Islington: a short piece by Robert Khan & Tom Salinsky about Tony Crosland, Roy Jenkins and Denis Healey wrangling over which of them should get a shot at being Prime Minister after Wilson. We also had tickets in September for Giant, with John Lithgow as Roald Dahl, but had to cancel. Friends of our neighbours had our tickets and enjoyed it.

Film of the year: Conclave

Contenders: A Complete Unknown, The Brutalist

Mentioned in Dispatches: One Battle After Another, The Salt Path

So-so: Babygirl, The Thursday Murder Club, Nuremberg

In a category of its own: Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale

Not a classic year, at least as regards what we saw, or are we getting too fussy? Being away so much probably caused us to miss a few gems.

On the telly we continue to explore Channel 4’s “Walter Presents” series, which brings European crime and mystery drama to UK audiences, e.g. Sløborn (all three series), Pale Mountains, Ice Cold Murders, Cold Summer, Inspector Gerri and The Roots of Evil. On BBC, The Black Forest Murders, Blue Lights, This City is Ours, Race Around the World, Prisoner 951 and The Night Manager (again). Also Outrageous (about the Mitfords) on the new U channel.

Exhibition of the year: Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers at National Gallery

Contenders: Georges de la Tour (Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris), Chiharu Shiota: The Soul Trembles (Grand Palais, Paris), Siena: The Rise of Painting 1300 ‒1350 (NG), Lee Miller (Tate Britain)

Mentioned in Dispatches: Theatre Picasso (Tate Modern), Hiroshige: Artist of the Open Road (British Museum), Geoffrey Rigden (APT, Greenwich), Astonishing Things: Victor Hugo (RA), Summer Exhibition (RA)

So-so: Brasil! Brasil! (RA)

Our European rail trip involved visits to the Galleria Borghese and the well-stocked churches of Rome, Lecce, Siena and Venice. Much more fun than trailing round an art gallery.

Eating out

We like to cook but we also do eat out a lot. The best food and service this year were at: Toklas (Aldwych), Jincheng Alley (Bloomsbury), The Art School (Liverpool), Kerala Kitchen (Upton) and Jumble Room (Grasmere). Côte and Pho, amongst the chains, were usually excellent.

King’s Cross is becoming a foodie destination, with German Gymnasium, Yatri, Mai Sushi, Kimchee and Albertini amongst our favourites.

Abroad, we really enjoyed: Erika (Pertisau), Bagogo (Siena), La Lupa (Rome), Komera (Monopoli), Le Procope (Paris), Coste Mor (Ploumanac’h) and Bistro de la Grève (Saint-Suliac). Once again, we appreciated the attentive and friendly service as well as the food itself.

The worst meal anywhere was unquestionably Maggie Fu (Liverpool), which was in every respect dreadful.

Books of the year

That’s to say “our year”, not necessarily books that were published in 2025. Anne read and enjoyed Jane Austen A life in small things by Paula Byrne, and The Glassmaker by Tracy Chevalier (an era-leaping tale based in Murano).

For Colin it was, for obvious personal reasons, 1971 Never a Dull Moment: Rock’s Golden Year by David Hepworth. Anne and Colin both also read three books about Sri Lanka (two of which are pictured below) and Colin enjoyed two about Cyprus: Bitter Lemons by Lawrence Durrell and Cypria by Alex Christofi.

He finally got round to H.V. Morton’s A Traveller in Rome, a brilliant piece of writing which should be read by anyone who’s been to or is intending to visit Rome.

We both enjoyed Gianrico Carofiglio’s Involuntary Witness, set in Bari, as well as the TV series adapted from it.

We are avid listeners to The Rest is Politics US podcast, which offers revealing twice weekly insights into the shenanigans going on in the United States and the charming gentleman who’s running (or do I mean ruining?) it.

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Colin’s mother passed away

Colin’s mother, Catherine Wight, known as Rena, died on Monday 8 December at the Manor House care home at the age of 95. She had been a resident for nearly four years, well looked after and apparently content. Although it is unreasonable to expect your parents to be still alive when you have reached the age of 70, it is still a sad day.

Colin writes: “I thank everyone for their sincere expressions of condolence. Dementia is an awful disease. You see a loved one gradually fading away, in this case over five or six years. It is during that period of decline when you are most tearful and unhappy. You don’t know how to ask for help or who to ask. At least I did not. I prefer to remember Mum as she was when I was a teenager. Youthful, lively, kind and popular with my friends.

However, even towards the end there were happy, shared moments, especially when it was warm enough to take Mum into the gardens.”

The funeral will take place on Tue 6 January 2026.

In sum, a mixed year

But aren’t they all? Mostly happy and exciting, but certainly the end of an era for Colin. We have lots of plans for next year, but rarely has a period of reflection seemed more appropriate.

Colin & Anne